Published April 30, 2009

Firefly sells tickets for KL-S'pore flights

Services will begin in July from Subang airport, which is closer to KL city

By VEN SREENIVASAN

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MALAYSIA Airlines' (MAS) turbo-prop budget carrier Firefly has started selling tickets for its Subang-Singapore flights.

Its website shows tickets for July inaugural services priced at RM88 (S$37) for Subang-Singapore and RM77 for Singapore-Subang, including all taxes and charges.

While the price itself may be beaten by competitors Tiger Airways, Jetstar Asia and Air Asia, Firefly has the advantage of flying from Kuala Lumpur's old international airport at Subang.

This is barely 20 minutes from the city, versus almost an hour from KL International Airport at Sepang.

Firefly has also obtained permits to fly between Singapore and Ipoh, Malacca, Kuantan, Penang and Kuala Terengganu.

Flights will start between July and September this year.

The low-cost carrier, which was set up in April 2007 by MAS to counter AirAsia, operates five ATR 72-500 turbo-prop aircraft and expects to get two more this year.

According to managing director Eddy Leong, Firefly will start the Subang-Singapore route with 28 flights a week.

This will be Firefly's first international route, after Singapore and Malaysia decided to fast-track air liberalisation, which started tentatively last year.

After opening the lucrative Singapore-Kuala Lumpur route to the budget carriers more than a year ago, the Malaysian government has opened other destinations to Singapore carriers.

East Malaysian destinations Kota Kinabalu and Kuching were opened up late last year. And this month, other routes were liberalised.

AirAsia, Jetstar, Tiger Airways and Silkair have all announced plans to fly to some of these destinations.